


blood and water

by alohacowboy



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28797435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alohacowboy/pseuds/alohacowboy
Summary: the blood of the covenant is thicker (or, arthur leaves his father's house)(part 1 of a 4-part series)
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	blood and water

**Author's Note:**

> i'm writing this in reverse and no-one can stop me
> 
>  **warning:** implied homophobic-related violence

_Stop shaking_ , Arthur thinks, blankly. Stop shaking _right now_. He can’t open his bag, and his vision’s blurred with rain and his knuckles are still bleeding, all scraped and people are staring now, and, fuck, he thinks.

He gives up trying to figure out how much public transport costs, gripping his mother's heirlooms like a lifeline in his pocket. He hunches in the stairwell and clutches his bag to him and bites a bleeding knuckle because he can hardly breathe.

His mind goes numb, and he gnaws at his fist just to _feel_ something, and finally feels his throat seize up, vision shattering liquidly. The contents of his stomach roil and come up into his mouth, where he chokes, spits, retches, crouched over his bag, wet, starving, shaking, scared.

He spits, feels the twinge of a loose tooth, remnants of blood in his throat. He rolls his tongue over his mouth, slowly, tasting the way the impact of the stairs in his father's house feels. He spits, again, phlegm and blood and disgust into the gutter. He thinks about waiting for the rain to stop. And he laughs, to himself, at that, leaning back, letting the rain soak him. It’s London, he thinks, it won’t ever stop raining.

\----

He wakes up when someone throws a few coins onto the ground in front of him, and he's so shocked, he just stares. People walk past with umbrellas and wellies, and the money just sits there. Part of him rears up angry, pride boiling in his chest, but part of him, the part where his dirty fingers scrabble along the ground and pick up the coins in his smudged palm, part of him merely sighs and thinks of a hot drink.

He buys one with slightly shaking hands from a cafe nearby. He sits in the window and watches his reflection breathe, cataloguing how he looks now, against transparent, spattered windows. He looks bedraggled, with his hair plastered down to his cheeks and forehead. He closes his eyes and inhales the steam from the paper cup and sees Morgana behind his eyelids, remembers her hard laughter and harder eyes when she saw him on her doorstep. The way she shut the door in his face. He doesn't begrudge her: Pendragons are never one for conciliation.

He sips the coffee, eyes shut, and burns his tongue but doesn’t care. He slumps onto his elbows, cup cradled in one hand, and breathes, and thinks _Merlin_. Arthur has so many other friends, _childhood_ friends that he could go to and, yet, that name is all he can think of.

When he opens his eyes, it’s because someone has touched his wrist. There’s a girl sitting across from him, with sunny brown eyes, her hair wet and hanging around her face. 

'Hi,' she says. She smells a little like sweet herbs. 

The girl’s name is Gwen, and she has a van parked in an alley, where they climb into the back, and sit cross-legged and smoke. And Arthur is heavy-eyed and tired, but warm now, like feeling the homesick ache evaporate from his body with the rain. He imagines he can see the steam and laughs until his cheeks hurt.

One of the guys in the van, Lance, had been backpacking across Asia recently, and he shows Arthur some of the things he brought back: necklaces, pipes still carrying the scent of faraway places, and a little carved bird. Arthur sleeps while Gwen drives them closer to where Arthur knows Merlin lives. She kisses him when he gets out, bag crushed in his arms, one held out sort of stupidly when Lance puts the little wooden bird into his palm. 

He's parched, buzzed, vision a little blurred as he stands outside of Merlin's flat. He sits down in the dirt of the road, and waits.

**Author's Note:**

> part 2 of this 4-part series titled 'bite the hand' link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28760421


End file.
